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myopia in hope of utopia – a glimpse into the future

DRM in PC games – How to get it right, Sega as an example

In the previous article we looked at Ubisoft’s online authentication scheme for controlling piracy, and found it to be highly inadequate, well this time its Sega’s turn following their announcement regarding the highly anticipate PC game Alpha Protocol.

The system chosen for Alpha Protocol is Uniloc: SoftAnchor. The system will allow the user to activate Alpha Protocol online immediately out of the box and once activated the user never needs to worry about activating again. The activation can be used on a limited amount of PCs, and can be deactivated through our online servers allowing the user full control over their license – should they need to re-install, swap machines or suffer a catastrophic hardware failure on their normal PC.

In the future, SEGA will be releasing an unprotected patch of the game to alleviate any fears of not being able to play the game when the Uniloc servers won’t be around anymore.

Way to go Sega! In one small step you (and the Developer Obsidian), have dodged a thousand forum rants, and dozens of angry petitions from gamers who swear on their mothers life that they will never play another Sega/Obsidian game again unless the DRM is removed.

Congratulations on setting your company decisively apart from the likes of Ubisoft, it will be worth it.